The popularity and greatness of Shivaji’s character have given rise to a typical phenomenon in the modern India.  Each and every ideological group want him colored in their own color, and unfortunately the far-right saffron Hindutva folks succeeded in it.  They distorted his image so much that he is almost deified as an incarnation of God who took birth “to save the Hindu people from the tyranny of Muslim rulers”; and this is far from truth.

This needs to be checked against historical facts and people should be made aware about this.  This has become more important in the post-1992 and post-Godhra India where Shivaji is again and again projected as a destroyer and enemy of Muslims.

Shivaji’s policy was not religious, but political:
Shivaji was Hindu by faith.  He was very religious by his own nature.  Most of his neighboring states were ruled by Muslim leaders.  As a matter of fact, Shivaji had to fight with all of them to carve out his own state.  But all the conflicts and battles were political in nature and not religious.  There was a sizeable amount of Muslim soldiers in Shivaji’s army.  Indeed, the highest chief of his Navy was a Muslim.  On the other hand, a large part of his enemy armies were Hindus.  In the battles Shivaji and his enemies, Hindus and Muslims fought against Hindus and Muslims, it was never a religious war.  They were purely political wars fought only for expansion of their respective territories.

On the other, Shivaji had many battles against many of the Hindu Maratha Zamindars.  Chandrarao More of Javli, himself a Maratha, was one of the very first enemies that Shivaji defeated.

Noted historian Jadunath Sarkar notes in his “Shivaji and His Times”:

Shivaji’s religious policy was very liberal.  He respected the holy places of all creeds in his raids and made endowments for Hindu temples and Muslim saints’ tombs and mosques alike.  He not only granted pensions to Brahman scholars versed in the Vedas, astronomers and anchorites, but also built hermitage and provided subsistence at his own cost for the holy men of Islam, notably Baba Yakut of Kelshi.

Even Khafi Khan, the historian of his enemies, noted that he never invaded the mosques, and if he founds a copy of Quran during his raids, he would respectfully hand it over to some of his Muslim soldiers.  This is in sheer contrast with Bal Thackeray, who after the demolition of Babri mosque reported to have commented that he was proud of the demolishers.

The perpetrators:
The deification of Shivaji’s image seems to have started in early 20th century.  V. D. Savarkar was amongst the very first ones who projected Shivaji as a national hero of Hindus.  This was in lines with his philosophy of Hindutva.  With his writings and his oratory, He created a predominantly Hindu image of Shivaji for the polarization of Hindus to support his ideology.  He also wrote an aarti (religious hymn) of Shivaji that again and again refers to him as a savior of Hindus.  Written in highly sanskritized Marathi, it goes like:

हे हिंदुशक्तीसंभूत दिप्तीतम तेजा
हे हिंदुतपस्यापूत ईश्वरी ओजा
हे हिंदुश्री सौभाग्यभूतीच्याअ साजा
हे हिंदुनृसिंहा प्रभो शिवाजी राजा

(The word ‘Hindu’ is is colored red by me for those who don’t know Devnagari script.  I am not able to translate it properly because of its overuse of Sanskrit words, but the last like can be translated as “Oh Hindu Lion man Lord King Shivaji.”)  The whole aarti is written in a sense that being a Hindu was the most important aspect of Shivaji’s character.  The another repeating theme of this aarti is the claim that Shivaji took his political inspiration from the Brahmin saint Ramdas, a claim that Jadunath Sarkar found “based on fabricated and suspicious evidences” even in the 1920s.

Almost all of the history written since then by Marathi authors is looks like written to support these two claims. V. K. Rajwade started this tradition, and a lot of fictional writers based their works on Rajwade’s “history.”  Later in the century, B. M. Purandare, a self-proclaimed historian who is no more than just a novelist, devoted all his life to this cause.  He wrote a novel on Shivaji’s life and a popular play that he performed all over the state putting emphasis on Shivaji’s image as a Hindu king of a Hindu state inspired by a Brahmin saint.

Why it is dangerous?
One who is not aware of the situation here may ask me why I am making issue out of it?  Why don’t I accept that Shivaji was a Hindu king?  But I am sure those who are aware of the contemporary social currents in India and those who are proud of India’s secular constitution would never ask this question.

Over the past few decades, RSS, Shivsena, VHP, Bajarang Dal are consistently using Shivaji’s popular name to attract the youth towards them.  They are using this saffronized image of Shivaji to polarize them against the Muslims.  “Look at him, He, Shivaji, the Hero of Hindus, how he killed Afzal Khan, the cruel wicked Muslim..etc.” is a common mantra.  The Hindutva parties have already polluted the atmosphere so much that India cannot afford any more spread of such ideology.

Some excerpts:
I have already written too much.  I shall present a couple of excerpts by some notable authors that would put some light on this issue.  The highly reliable Cambridge History of India notes:

Let us pause to consider the sort of polity that Shivaji was carving out in the Pune region.  Many of the major writers on the subject would have us believe that Shivaji was creating a Hindu state, something fundamentally different and in opposition to the Muslim states that surrounded it.  The Brahmin historians of the twentieth century, starting with Rajwade, especially wanted to prove that Shivaji was guided by Brahmin advisors from early in his life, and that he had a vision of a state based on something called ‘Maharashtra Dharma.’  Much of this, if not all, has been shown by later research to be an artefact of the researchers, and not a fact of the period.

Rafiq Zakaria, a statesman and scholar of current social situation of India, wrote in his Communal Rage in Secular India:

In medieval times, when religious dogmatism was a rage all over the world, Shivaji exhibited an outlook against bigotry which has few parallels in the annals of the world.  He fought no doubt against one of the greatest Muslim empires of those days and was inspired by the teaching of his own religion but surprisingly he never allow himself to preach or practise hatred against followers of other religions, including Islam.  On the contrary, the recent research that has been carried out about his rule, reveal that he was motived by broad secular values.  Stories and plays written about him unfortunately give a narrow, distorted image of him.  Politicians have also used his name to promote parochialism and to divide the people of religious and regional basis.

To conclude, I have no hesitation to accept Shivaji as a Hindu king, but as Akbar was a great Islamic secular, Ashoka was a Buddhist secular, Shivaji too was a Hindu secular king, and indeed Ashoka, Akbar, and Shivaji provide a true picture of secularism in the Indian context.

I am about 28 now and never had a complete set of 32 teeth in my mouth; only 26 erupted, others remained latent never coming above the surface, so I have always had a lot of vacancies in there.  To worsen the things, two of my existing teeth (a lower molar on each side) are decayed since childhood.  I took a good care of them and they never gave me any trouble until the recent past.  One of the decayed molar fell out last year, rather I pulled it myself and it came out leaving some roots behind; those roots are causing pain providing a site for recurrent infections.  I went to a dentist a couple of weeks ago for the same problem.  She prescribed me some medications and advised to get the tooth extracted completely.

Coming to the point, I’m afraid of injections, so I don’t go to doctors.  I had had my last IM injection back in 1999, which was a tetanus in a school health program.  I took it only after I found out I cannot run away from school.  IVs are less painful; I’ve had one in some 2006-07.  Now the problem is if I go back to the dentist, I would have to get the tooth pulled out and it’s going to be painful.  Dental procedures are mostly done under local anesthesia, so she will give me injections in my gums.  I haven’t had a tetanus shot in years, so I might have to get one.  And frankly, I am afraid of injections, much more than the tooth pain itself.

I have worked in the emergency rooms for a long while, and have done procedures under local anesthesia almost on a daily basis.  I know it is painful just for a while and then it only helps the patient, but I’m finding it tough to apply the same principle to myself.  It is not that I cannot tolerate the pain, just I am afraid of it.

But I think I will go to the dentist sooner or later and will have the tooth pulled.  I will have injections and I will bear the pain, I know I can do that (if the fear is out).  Why shall I stay awake for nights just because I am afraid of something?  Why shall I not enjoy chocolates and cold coffee?  I cannot live without chocolates, so I must go and get my tooth pulled, and possibly a root canal to the other one decayed.

I need to get that damn tooth pulled out, and before that, the fear!

Note:  Sketch by Kazumi Hatasa/Flickr.  Fair use for illustration.

Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts.  Psalm 119:173

And aren’t your precepts mine too?

Note:  The post title is taken from a famous Sanskrit prayer from Brihadaranyaka 1:3:27; it means “lead me from darkness to light.”

A while ago, I started posting a daily photo on Flickr.  The concept was to get an eye looking for new ideas on a daily basis.  I had a hard time for the first few days to find something new to click.  I had already shared about 100 photos from literally every corner of the city, so it was very difficult to find new places everyday.  Also, one cannot go on a photo-shoot daily, we have our own jobs etc., so I had to find something new at the very same places day to day, and I turned towards people.  After all, we can always find new people on the same streets forever.

But what I started as a leisure activity turned out to be a disheartening thing for me.  We are a booming economy.  People are getting salaries that they never believed they would.  Roads are getting poured with more cars and more bikes.  India is shining.  And as I turn my camera on roads, I find people living at the lowest brink of poverty, at the depth of human dignity.  And the socioeconomic system, the religion have deep-sown a philosophy in them to be satisfied in what they are.  They neither aspire something higher, nor are they conscious of what destitute life they are living.  I am standing between the two extremes of India, and I’m awed with those both.

I wish someone of them grows up to sue me for publishing their pictures in such inhumane state without their consent.

Note:  Hover over the photos for the alt text.  Click on the photos for the respective Flickr page.  All photos are CC-BY-SA.

I want to know your personal opinions and not what your religion thinks about it, but if you are putting your thoughts as a representative of your religion, please put a note to let me know such.  You can put your thoughts in comments, or if they are lengthy enough, you can trackback on your own blog.

I hope this ordeal would help me to get a better understanding of one of the most complicated ideas of human conception, and hopefully I will get some insight into my philosophy of God too.

I don’t have too much to write tonight.  I am writing this post from a pubilc computer; it does not give the comfort of the personal one.  I’ll again have to get a new setup, again a new installation of Windows Live Writer, again a template dummy post to all my subscribers, I apologize for that in advance.

In the meanwhile, I am keeping myself in-touch as much as I can with my cellphone browser.  You can always check me on Twitter.

I am running out of life, and I am living it.  I want to live it full.  I have a right to pursue happiness, happiness that for now just allures me from afar, sometimes from a bit closer.

Yeah, I’m again going random–you say I need to keep a check on myself, I go random more often than I should.  I don’t know how should I keep myself on track.  I’m running out of life, and I want to live it.

And I want to live it, because I deserve to live–I deserve much more than I have now, I deserve you, I do!

My question is about myself.  Am I being honest with myself while I write these things?  I know I am not.

I am a writing guy.  As a friend pointed out, I need to write down things to come at a decision.  Still, I have kept some decisions pending; and they are left pending because I am not writing about those things, not here on this blog, not anywhere else.  I even tried to start a new blog.  The main issue is not of freedom of expression, on this blog or that, what matters the most is the freedom of thoughts, and I am afraid I have lost the habit to have it!

Again, I don’t want to point a finger at someone else.  It’s me who is keeping myself under constraints.  I can fight with everyone else for trying to cage me down; how shall I deal with myself?

I want to fly, free from myself!  I am choosing an easy way—stay where you are—I would rather not!  I must remember what the Buddha had told me, in the Dhammapada, “Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful to ourselves, are easy to do; what is beneficial and good, that is very difficult.”

And I want the strength to do the beneficial and good!

There is nothing special with January 17, 2012 to start a new blog; but it was not such with April 9, 2011 too when I had started the Blog of Reflections.  The Blog of Reflections was started as a safe outlet for all the things that crowd within me and press hard to blow their way out.  It was intended to be a personal blog where I can post whatever I want to, may be a single photograph, or just a status-like sentence.  But again, as it had happened with Ghalibana, the Blog of Reflections turned out to be more serious than what I had thought it would be.

So again, here I am with a new blog that I hope will not be as serious as the previous ones, where I can smile, laugh, cry, or do whatever I want to, as long as it pleases me.

And as always:

The moon never shows his 100%, not even on a full moon night.  The darker side of the moon may not be as dark, but it is his own, and he prefers it concealed from the world.

And here I am, to talk of the ups and downs, of the growth and decay, of the full moon and no moon, and whatever—of the brighter side!

Will you please forgive me?

I hope language won’t be a big barrier.  I don’t know Tamil too, still I enjoyed the song.  Everything is perfect, Thamarai’s words, A. R. Rahman’s music, Shreya’s voice, the 2000-year-old poetry of Thiruvalluvar in chorus, and oh how can I forget it, the picturization.  I’m loving it.  For the curious ones (like me), here is a translation (external link).

Do let me know of your thoughts, I’m waiting for them, and yeah, I am in love

In many parts of India, and in the city where I live, the main feature of Makar Sankranti is kites.  It’s January, sky is bright clear, temperature is pleasantly cool, a perfect time to fly kites!  Hundreds of kites can be seen above in the sky, of different colors and shapes, sometimes as big as a chopper.  Just the day before yesterday, they were attempting for Guinness Book of World Records  for flying the largest bamboo-made kite in a nearby ground.  I don’t know of the result, however.

I can’t fly kites.  My mother never let me fly kite as a kid.  I was the only son, and too much cared for.  Once only I had bought a kite for four annas (0.25 INR) and was beaten for it.  Flying kites can be hazardous sometimes if precautions not taken!  There was a little boy who fell in a well while running behind a cut kite.  My mother never let me fly kite; later I never attempted it too!

I lived in relatively small towns then.  People didn’t have this much craze of kites there.  Nagpur goes crazy behind kites.  One needs to be too much cautious even if he is not flying kites.  Kids run across the roads behind the kites.  Some hanging thread across the road can slit your throat.  It’s dangerous.    I myself have seen one such a patient.  He was riding his bike and a kite thread slit his throat across.  We had to take assistance of an ENT surgeon to repair his throat as it was too deep!  The administration has banned China-made nylon threads this year and have suggested to use simple threads only.

Still, Makar Sankranti is a joy!  It’s a holiday, the teeL-gooL laddoos taste good, and I like watching people flying kites and enjoying the good air!

Notes:
1.  The winter solstice falls on December 22, but for some reasons unclear to me, Makar Sankranti is celebrated on January 14/15.
2.  Both the pictures above are taken in/around Reshimbag Ground this morning.